Contrary to its promising name, Gotham View Condominium did not offer a view of Gotham. As condominium complexes in Gotham went, Gotham View was modest-only eight stories high. The only view it offered was merely that of the street below and the surrounding, taller buildings. It did, however, offer spacious and reasonably-priced condominium units to middle-class folks eager to own a little piece of real estate within the city limits. It was located in a decent residential neighborhood populated by equally respectable people-hardworking people with normal lives, individuals and couples and families just trying to get by.
But was that really the case?
For the better part of Tuesday afternoon and evening, he sat in the Volvo Alfred had, with disturbing efficiency, acquired for the stake-out. From the Volvo, he watched the foot traffic around the neighborhood, observing its ebbs and flows. Being stuck in one place for an extended period of time inevitably led to introspective musings, and Bruce couldn't help but ponder this sinister train of thought. How many of the men and women ducking into their homes were exactly as they seemed—how many of them were returning to happy, or at least relatively stable, homes? How many of them were returning to families only to make them miserable? Briefly, he remembered the children of Safe Haven, more than a few of whom had been sexually abused. How many of these men and women were going to their homes to enact or enable those horrible acts? What was going on behind those curtained windows, behind those deceptively flimsy doors?
Finally, Alfred interrupted his solitary musings. "Master Wayne, if I may ask, what is the purpose of this?"
It was almost 7 PM. by that point, and both of them were stiff from spending several hours inside the vehicle. Darkness had fallen, and the majority of the neighborhood had retreated indoors to lead their evening lives.
"Observation, Alfred." Bruce glanced at the information he had written down when he had returned to the Manor the previous weekend.Gotham View Condominiums. 655 Central Beech Grove Street. Unit 48. It was where Marjane's husband lived, and it was where he expected to find Marjane-or else "persuade" her husband to reveal where she was at. "I don't have a lot of time to pull this off, but I need to plot what logistics I can." He shifted about, trying to find a more comfortable position-higher-end car though it may be, it certainly wasn't intended for any sort of long-term living arrangement.
"When do you plan to do this rescue operation, Master Wayne?"
"Tomorrow night." Bruce frowned as he watched a man strolling down the sidewalk. He was of medium build, with a somewhat sallow complexion. His attire was that of any Gotham businessman-a decent suit, looking a little worn from a day's work. The only description he had to go on was a verbal one, given by Annabeth, who had in turn been told one evening by Marjane. Could this be her husband?
The man scurried past the Volvo, not giving a second glance at the vehicle that no doubt blended in reasonably well amidst all of the Corollas, Civics, and Escorts parked along the street. Once more, Bruce admired Alfred's resourcefulness and presence of mind—he would have been content to take the Rolls, and had only changed his mind when Alfred persuaded him that a Rolls in a middle-class neighborhood would stick out as much as…a man dressed as a bat would on a crowded Gotham sidewalk. Sometimes, Bruce suspected that he wouldn't have nearly the amount of success that he did if Alfred were not there beside him. Only Alfred's smugness prevented Bruce from expressing this hunch—the old man didn't need any more reason to feel justifiably superior.
As he passed by, the light of the streetlamp overhead illuminated the man, and Bruce could see the funny scar on the man's neck-one of the characteristics in Marjane's description. "That's him." Bruce stared intently, memorizing the man's posture, his movements, his bearing. He doubted the man would be put up much of a fight, but he made it a point to never underestimate an opponent.
"That's the fellow that you intend to beat into a pulp?" Alfred craned his neck to watch the man and voiced thoughts disturbingly similar to Bruce's. "He looks like an accountant."
"Actually," Bruce smiled with little pleasure, "he is."
"I must say, sir, I imagine he will be quite open to reasoning if faced with a costumed man with a notorious penchant for violence. Is it really necessary to unleash your...brand of persuasion?"
It was a valid question. If Bruce, as the Batman, could persuade through words, rather than violence, why should he resort to force? If he did resort to force unnecessarily, did that weaken his moral stance? Did it make him more of the vicious, heartless vigilante the media painted him as, and that the citizens of Gotham currently loathed? But even as he pondered this question, a memory flashed into his mind: Marjane, when she first arrived at Safe Haven, beaten, bruised, bloody, and practically incoherent with terror. God only knew how she managed to find out about Safe Haven to begin with, and how she had managed to make her way there. She was sixteen, and should still be a child. Instead, she was having a child—if her husband had not already forced her to get rid of it—and she was probably even now trapped in this s home.
Some things in the world didn't change. Some people didn't respond to reason. But they recognized brute force, they used it when they could, they respected it in others when they had to. He suspected that Marjane's husband was one of these, one who would use violence as his own expression of power. Even after he got Marjane away, what would stop that man from returning to Iran and acquiring another child-bride? No, the Batman would bring violence down upon this man, because that was the language that they both spoke and understood.
"I think this man will appreciate my form of persuasion, Alfred." Bruce wondered if he should explain to Alfred his theory, but Alfred seemed to accept this succinct reply with little reproach.
"Very well, sir. But when the police ask me some day why my employer chose to dress up as a bat and beat up on officious accountants, I will simply say that you didn't agree with their tax assessments."
The two men fell into a companionable silence again as Bruce carried on with his surveillance and observations, but not before Alfred took one final shot:
"I certainly hope the paparazzi aren't nearby. This would be very difficult to justify: 'Hard times: Billionaire Bruce and Butler Living Out of Car.'"
Whether or not they had ever been to America, everyone had their own version of the American Dream. Of this, Taher Radan was utterly certain. It was a strange, mythical concept that seemed to penetrate all cultures, hypnotizing, beguiling, and seducing until its victims—beneficiaries?—were utterly obsessed with the possibility of coming to the Promised Land. Of course, the American Dream was much more appealing to those in suppressed or economically struggling countries; Taher knew this from firsthand experience. He had grown up in Iran, had remembered what it was like prior to the Revolution, and the Iran that emerged afterwards was enough, in and of itself, to drive any secular Persian to the brink of desperation. But to live in Iran after the Revolution, while hearing of America's charms and freedoms and prosperities—oh, that was torture.
Taher's American Dream emerged in the years after the Revolution, as he watched his home and life in Northern Tehran torn apart by the repressive regime. He imagined moving his father, a distinguished professor, to America, where he could teach without fear of reprisal; he dreamed of moving his mother and sister to America, where they could walk the streets without worrying about the Morality Police who had begun patrolling the streets and sidewalks of Iran. He dreamt of this, oh, how he did, but only part of the dream came true: he came to America, after three years of bribing and string-pulling to obtain the necessary papers, permissions, and passports, but he had been forced to leave his family behind in Iran.
And the America of which Taher had dreamt? Well, it existed, to a certain extent. He was able to speak his mind and amuse himself as he pleased, he was allowed to work and earn and spend his money as he pleased. But, surprisingly, he missed Iran—he missed the architecture, the culture, the insular families, the gossip, the drama, the food—oh, the food—the history, the literature. He was alone in America, and he found his dream not quite complete.
That was when he realized that he wanted to share the American dream with someone—he wanted a good Persian girl, high maintenance and refined, desperate for the freedom and the luxuries of the West, yet still appreciative of her own traditions and culture. If he could find her, he was certain, the American Dream would come true. He would have it all, the American dream melded with the Persian culture.
Finding her, well, that had been more difficult. There wasn't a large Persian community in Gotham, and he found it difficult to meet the type of Persian girl he sought. To begin with, the ladies whom he met found him to be too old for their preferences—already, they were slipping into that American way of worshipping young men—and anyway, he found them to be disappointingly ignorant of their Persian roots. Most of them had been reared in America, and had adopted the American lifestyle. No, he wanted a girl who wasPersian, first and foremost, and untainted by some of the more decadent, immoral aspects that had marred the older Persian girls that he had encountered in Gotham.
It was a friend of his from the office who had suggested returning to Iran to find a bride. Taher had not been fond of the idea at first; after all, returning to Iran was a risk all its own. But upon further reflection, it appeared to be just the right solution—and some of his clients were powerful men who owed him favors for helping them avoid hefty tax payments. With their help, he would be able to expedite the process of bringing a bride over, regardless of whether or not she would have the appropriate passport. Marriage to a young girl would not be difficult in Iran, either, not nearly as tricky—or illegal—as it would be if he tried it in America. And so, Taher had made the long trek back to his homeland, and despite the potential peril, he made it there and back safely-with a wife in tow. A Persian wife, just as he hoped, a young woman who was eager for the West yet happy to cling to some of the lovely traditions of their country.
All of two days passed before Taher learned that the reality of his wife deeply contradicted his idea—this Marjane whom he had married was as young as he had hoped, yet not as traditional as he had hoped...she had been spoiled and indulged by her family, and never ceased sniveling over how much she missed them. As a wife, she was completely useless, and he made no efforts to conceal or restrain his rage and disappointment. Taher was a modern man in that he loved the secular luxuries of the west, but a traditional man in that he believed in a man's place at the head of the home. Come hell or high water, he would make sure Marjane fell into line with his view.
Then there was that business of her running away. Even now, as Taher recalled this embarrassing episode, he ground his teeth in humiliated anger. A man who could not keep order in his own home was no man at all, and he could only thank his stars that the Persian community in Gotham was so tiny-there was no one to notice or care that Taher Radan couldn't keep his silly wife in order. In the end, it had been her parents that revealed to him Marjane's location; they had worried for their daughter and believed life with her husband was safer than life alone in America. Taher had made his way to Metropolis—how on earth had she wound up there?—and with more physical than verbal persuasion, he brought her back to Gotham. A round of hard smacks about her head, as well as some well-placed kicks and a sound shaking, was enough to bring her into line-all of that, and, of course, being locked in the bedroom, where she was at the moment.
No, having a useless gaav of a wife was not Taher's American Dream-it was more of a nightmare. Little did he know it was one from which he would soon awake, to find that reality was far worse.
On that bitterly cold night in late October, as Taher made his way down the sidewalk towards his condominium building—he had parked his old BMW in the garage one block over—he was blasted with an icy gust of wind, and he burrowed deeper into his jacket. To save on electricity, he had turned off the heat before he left for work that morning-no doubt Marjane would be whining about how cold she was. He ground his teeth as he considered this, and quickly transformed his grimace into a smile as he passed his neighbors, the Dahls, as they came out of the building. Mr. Dahl was a pediatrician, and his wife was a schoolteacher; he cheated on her, and she drank copious amounts. Taher was willing to bet everyone in his building had some sort of secret life-
-like an underaged wife locked in the back bedroom.
Once the sun had set, all of the light had fled the room, taking with it what little warmth there had been in the cramped, unheated bedroom. The bitter cold was what finally brought Marjane awake; as sleep receded, she realized she was shivering too hard to stay asleep any longer.
But there was something else which awakened her as well-the muffled sounds of life coming from the rest of the condo. A door opening, slow and heavy footsteps, the sound of keys jangling, the music and voices of the television. Taher was home. She wondered, briefly, if he would come into the bedroom, but finally decided she simply no longer cared. She was cold, hungry, injured, and frightened, and all of these unpleasant conditions had conspired to leave her depressed and in no position to try to remedy her situation. For two days now, she had been left in here, left to her thoughts, her fears, her self-recriminations.
And there were plenty of the last: calling her family in Iran had been the worst choice she could have made, and she realized it as soon as she heard the anxious voices of her mother and father. But oh, how she had missed them. Her new family in Metropolis—Noushin, her husband Salman, and their daughters—had been nothing less than kind and considerate, but how did one simply forget one family and take on a new one? It was hard, too hard, and there were only so many tears Marjane could cry before she realized that she needed to hear her own mother's voice. After all, she was herself only a few months away from being a mother
Her parents meant well, and she liked to think they never would have allowed the marriage if they had known what Taher was truly like...but then, when she had tried to explain during that foolish phone call, they hadn't listened. They remained on the phone only long enough to learn where she was, and that was what sealed her fate. She hung up shortly after, and never mentioned the phone call to Noushin and Salman. She didn't want to worry them.
Only a day or two after that, as she was returning home, she was snatched. Right off a busy street, by none other than the man who had haunted her dreams for months. And the nightmare hadn't ceased since then.
Taher had tossed a thin blanket at her that morning before he left the condo; now, in the grey twilight gloom, as the cold began to penetrate even deeper into her devastated body, she clutched the blanket tighter around her. Would he bring her anything to eat tonight? It was horrible and degrading that he had reduced her to this desperation, had reduced her to hoping for nothing more than basic nourishment. But she still had the baby, and she was desperate to make sure she did everything she could to make sure it stayed that way.
Before Marjane had left Iran, her mother had pulled her aside, and with one final embrace, had told her, "Marriage is a dard-e-beedarmoon"—apain without a cure. Had her mother known what she was sending her daughter in to? As Marjane pondered this, she put a protective arm around her belly and prayed silently that she would not ever do that to her child. If it was ever born.
It was this bittersweet thought to which she clung as she rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Sleep was the only thing that could take her away from this horror-even though waking up was almost as awful as anything. Sleep would take away her anxieties about the baby; it would take away her fear and her hunger; and it would dull the pain from her head and face, where Taher had hit her so many times.
Sleep did not come. However, something else did.
A split second after Marjane became aware of another presence in the room, a gloved hand clamped over her mouth.
"Don't make a sound."
The voice was barely above a whisper, and yet it carried the power of a voice bellowing off the top of a mountain. Her eyes widened as she registered the origins of the voice: a looming figure overhead, its bulk only slightly darker than the grey gloom around it. She had the presence of mind to reach for the lamp next to her bed and pull the switch, flooding the small room with harsh light, and nearly giving herself a fright in the process. An unknown, shadowy figure in the darkness was far less terrifying a sight than the enormous figure dressed in inky black who now stood before her, looking all the more frightening for the contrast between his outfit and the bright light that now illuminated the room.
Marjane was by no means proficient in the English language, but she had acquired enough to know she was looking at the creature all the newspapers she had read were talking about: the Batman.
Frightened brown eyes met determined, ice-blue eyes that stared at her from the cowl covering his face. His gloved hand remained pressed down on her mouth; with his other hand, he silently put a finger to his lips. She nodded once, and he removed his hand and stepped back.
Only then, once the Batman had quelled her fright and diffused any potential outburst, did he truly take in her appearance: her face was every bit as swollen and bruised as the day she had first stepped through the doors of Safe Haven. Her lip was split, and dried blood had crusted on to it. Several small bruises, roughly the size of finger tips, marbled her neck and arms. Quickly, he scanned his eyes over the rest of her body: she was pale and shivering, and there was a gentle swell at her midsection, where her pregnancy was just beginning to show. She was still pregnant-although that was about the only thing promising about her. If anything, she looked worse than when she had escaped, and she certainly looked more terrified.
"Can you stand? Can you walk?" He snapped these questions out quickly, trying hard not to betray the rage building within him.
She nodded hesitantly.
"I'm going to get you out of here. Wait, and stay out of the way."
The Batman moved away from the bed then, his movements decisive, silent, and lightning-quick. He glanced back at Marjane, once; she was still cowering on the bed, perhaps petrified with fright, but as their eyes met, he saw something shift in her stance-she became more aware, more watchful. She tensed up, as though ready to run. Her survival instinct had kicked in. Good.
As he moved to the door, he tried not to think about Marjane. If he did, the rage that was boiling just below the surface would come bursting forth in a deadly, scalding-hot geyser of violence that would destroy anything in his path. "I don't kill," he told Annabeth, and he had meant it. He was no judge, no juror, no executioner, he was only an instrument to bring someone to justice. And failing that, he was a protector. But looking at Marjane's young, frightened face; sensing her fear for her unborn child, knowing that he was currently the only hope she had in an unfair world, was enough to challenge his most basic tenets. What he was about to do, whatever it was, was maybe the only justice Marjane's husband would ever experience.
And with that, he kicked open the bedroom door.
When the Batman came crashing out of the bedroom—taking half the door with him—Taher was sitting on the couch, watching television. He did not remain there, however; surprisingly, he jumped up, prepared to defend himself and his home. But beyond the initial punch that he threw, he never stood a chance. Even if the Batman did not have the element of surprise on his side, there would have been no challenge whatsoever. Later, when he described the scene to Alfred, he had to admit that he was disappointed. He wanted more of a fight; he wanted to inflict pain; he wanted the man to know how Marjane felt. As it was, the Batman intercepted Taher's blow, simply grabbing his arm in his iron-grip and forcing it behind his back and up, up—until he heard the satisfying snap of a bone. Taher's howl of pain was loud and genuine, but cut mercifully short as the Batman released his arm and spun him around. His movements were short, sharp, and forceful-several blows, delivered in quick succession, brought Taher to the floor, lying on his belly, groaning, barely conscious.
The Batman knelt down beside him and whispered, almost gently, in Taher's ear. "Sometimes life is worse than death, especially with the right amount of pain. And I know how to make you feel that pain. Never come near Marjane again. If you do, your life will be a waking nightmare." He placed a gloved hand on the back of Taher's neck, near a vital point, and applied a precise amount of pressure. "Feel this?"
Frantically, Taher nodded.
"Remember that pain the next time you think you want to hurt someone." The Batman pressed harder, and smiled in grim satisfaction as Taher passed into unconsciousness.
He stood up, and saw Marjane standing in the bedroom doorway, arms crossed protectively around herself. "We're leaving."
She simply stared out into the living room, uncomprehending.
Was she in shock? Thinking fright had perhaps temporarily robbed her of her ability to comprehend English, he tried speaking to her in Farsi, but no-still no reaction. It was something else that kept her so still. She was transfixed, not by the Batman, but by the prostrate form of Taher, lying on the floor.
"We have to go. Now." His tone was commanding, and he moved back toward the bedroom, to the window by which he had entered the condo. "Marjane."
Even uttering her name did not achieve the desired affect, so he gripped her arm and gave a tug. Surprisingly, she shuffled along willingly enough, but could not tear her eyes away from Taher. The Batman felt a surge of desperate impatience-and then Marjane spoke, making him stop in his tracks.
"I do not want to forget how he looks now."
He glanced down at her, and saw she had looked away from Taher and was now regarding him with face of grim satisfaction. "You brought to him what he has been making me feel. You make him have much pain."
The Batman nodded silently. Together they stood side by side, gazing down at Taher. After a moment, Marjane spoke again. "I do not know who you are. But I must trust you. I have no one else."
"You're coming with me." His answer was characteristically terse. "I'm taking you to your friends. Are you hurt badly? Can you walk on your own?"
Marjane nodded, her eyes once more growing wide as she considered the unknown before her.
The Batman led her back through the bedroom, to the window. "We'll get to the alley below. My vehicle is there, and I'll take you to where you need to go." Without giving her a moment to protest or consider the logistics, he shot his grappling gun and grabbed onto Marjane. "Hold on."
As the Batman carefully lowered them to the bottom of the building, he could not suppress a wry realization: Between Annabeth and Marjane, I'm getting good at this.
The Tumbler was waiting there in the alley, and the Batman helped Marjane into it before leaping in himself. As he waited for the system to kick in and plan the route to Metropolis, he turned to the young girl. The close quarters of the vehicle should have made it a perturbing situation, but he didn't even think about it. He set to work, examining her head, her neck, checking for massive injuries. The adrenaline that had carried her through the lightning-fast escape had left her and rendered her passively silent and submissive.
"Are you cold?" His voice, normally so raspy, was surprisingly deep and loud in the small space. She nodded, once, and he quickly produced a blanket from a supply kit that Alfred had placed in the Tumbler earlier in the day. It was a lightweight blanket, made of a wool blend meant to trap heat with maximum efficiency, and he could think of no better time to see how well it worked. He unfurled it and threw it over her shivering body, noting that in her jeans and shirt-no doubt the same that she had been wearing when Taher snatched her—she was woefully underdressed.
There was a bottle of nutrient-reinforced water in the kit as well, and he pulled that out and placed it into her hands. "Drink this."
Having tended to her the best he could, he began to focus on the journey ahead. Metropolis was two hours away in traffic; without traffic, he could get there a lot sooner. The Tumbler would slip through the night, surprisingly unnoticeable. He had thrown the engine into "quiet" mode, and provided he stuck to the darker roads and didn't pull any major traffic snafus, there was no reason to think they would attract unwanted attention.
As they drew away from the alley, Marjane turned to look back, only to find that there was no looking back; no rear windshield or mirrors were on this vehicle. She could only look forward, which was just as well, the Batman thought. Marjane needed to heal, to move past this, to forget. But the Batman could not tell her this. He could only return her to Metropolis and try his hardest to make sure Taher Radan never entered her life again.
After a moment, he heard a stifled, strangled sound. He turned to Marjane, and saw that she had leaned forward and buried her head in her knees. She was crying. No doubt the shock had worn off, to be replaced with the far worse sensations of fear, pain, and uncertainty. She had a long, lonely road ahead of her, and it was a road he understood all too well. It was a road she would have to walk alone as she grew to adulthood and learned to trust again, and tried to make a home for herself in this strange country, far from her real family and her past.
Almost hesitantly, he reached out and stroked her head, once, and left his hand resting there, lending his own strength to her silent struggle of pain. Marjane would be alone in many ways, but not tonight, not as he took her back to the only home she had.